As companies are continually required to reduce price in order to stay competitive, costs of production must be driven down. It is not sufficient to merely analyze material costs, all costs including production-handling costs and storage costs must be made cost effective.
One method to eliminate costs and improve efficiency is to utilize automated storage and retrieval systems, both during production and in warehousing. One such system is disclosed in a brochure entitled "Take Control with Emtrol--Automated Pan and Trough Storage--Retrieval Systems". While this system is shown for use in the baking industry, the concepts can be utilized in any industry in which inventory must be stored and retrieved. These systems allow for immediate personnel reductions, greater effective floor capacity and increased production.
It is important to note that loads handled by the automated systems are not specifically designed to make the system operate more effectively. Rather the loads have generally been designed to function with the production equipment to produce the finished goods or for optimum performance of the material. For instance, in the baking industry, the loads consist of baking pans or containers. The pans have been dimensioned to work with the baking or processing equipment and to allow optimum use of the dough. The dimensions of the pans are not and cannot be governed by the retrieval system. Consequently, the retrieval system must be designed around the optimal configuration of the pans.
To date containers of all sizes required in the industry have been accommodated. However, due to the limitations of components of the system, some of the more narrow containers have occupied more space than necessary, resulting in a less than optimum use of the overall space required for the system. One such practical limitation of the system occurs due to the physical requirements for the transport vehicle. These transport vehicles, as exemplified in the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/978,835 filed Nov. 26, 1997, are constructed to provide heavy lifting capacity in a simple and compact lift. As the weight of the load increases, the internal cams, gearboxes and motors of the transport vehicle must increase in order to handle the loads effectively. If the overall dimensions of the transport vehicle increase beyond the dimensions required to support the smallest load, the transport vehicle rather than the load is what governs the grid spacing. This is not a desired result as it causes the overall system cost to increase.
Although the actual size of the transport vehicle can only be reduced so far without effecting the power and physical stability thereof, it would be beneficial if parts of the remainder of the system could be modified to give the transport vehicle an effectively smaller width.